I grew up in the small town of Bad Axe in the “Thumb” of Michigan. My father farmed 350 acres and milked over 100 cows.  I cannot claim to have worked too hard; unlike many farm kids, I was allowed to participate in many extra-curricular activities at school. Still, my summers were spent bailing hay, feeding calves, and helping with the never-ending repairs on the farm. My dad never used the word “engineering,” but as I look back, I can clearly recognize that much of the problem solving and jerry-rigging took the ingenuity of an engineer.  Agriculture is a tough business, and farmers carry a tremendous responsibility to keep their farm operating.

Equipment maintenance is extremely important – especially when your “fleet” is all second-hand. The new modern tractors that most people see advertised in those birds-eye-view country music videos cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The typical family farm makes do with second hand equipment and does whatever it can to keep it running year after year.

This summer, on a trip back home for my 10-year reunion, my dad proudly showed me the work he had been doing on his combine.  He was in the process of changing out the metal screens that separate the shell-corn from the stalk waste. Removing these screens revealed more damaged parts that could only be accessed by crawling into the bowels of the combine. New parts would cost several thousand dollars, but he estimated that my uncle, who owns a specialty machining and welding shop, could reproduce an equivalent part for much less.

Around the front of the combine, my dad pointed out the features on a new header. This is the part that cuts the corn, or in this case, soybeans (different plants require different cutting tools). One feature was a stainless-steel plate over which the cut stems would be fed into the thrasher. Earlier designs had used a steel plate, but it tended to rust and eventually caused the plants to rub and cause further damage to the plate.  My dad was also replacing the metal needles that feed the stalk past the knives with plastic needles. These are cheaper to replace and less likely to bend out of alignment. Even a few misaligned needles and dull knives can slow the performance of the combine and lead to more serious damage.

Getting the seed into the ground is even more complicated than harvesting. Modern sensors in the planting implements help farmers ensure that exactly the right amount of seed is planted per acre. New monitoring systems can instantaneously compile the yield of that acre during harvest. By comparing maps of the data, farmers can adjust the amount of fertilizer used per acre – usually to reduce the amount placed on high-yield areas. The cost of fertilizer has increased dramatically over the past few years, and over-fertilization can pollute the local water supply.

Even the buildings that the animals and equipment are stored in have been engineered. Today, pole barn construction is very common, but before the 1960s, most farmers were still building big hip-roofed barns. The pole barn is named for its regularly spaced columns, which support a sloped roof framed with wood rafters. In early rafter designs, 2×4 boards were connected side by side. A bolt connects them, but a metal ring is cut into the face of each board. This ring is meant to spread out the force at the connection so that the board does not split. A more efficient connection can be made if the connecting members are in the same plane. This was made possible with two metal plates, each with many nail-like spikes, that sandwich the 2×4s.

As my dad continued the tour of the farm, I realized how much engineering had always been around me. Farmers engineer: biosystems – plant and animal genetics and care; mechanics – equipment repair and machining; structures – building barns, cranes, silos, grain bins; and complex systems – business management and process efficiency.  I’m amazed by the ingenuity of my father and the breadth of his knowledge.

It took me some time to appreciate the opportunity I had growing up to learn a strong work ethic and problem solving skills on the farm. That experience has prepared me as well as anything for the career I have today.

The opening of a new fire station is a big deal, whether you live in small town America or a big city like Chicago.  Such an event calls for a small parade of flower girls, all the local politicians, and even a marching band.  On this beautiful summer morning, even the mayor of Chicago is on hand.  Amid all the major construction projects of the metropolis, it’s easy to lose sight of the importance of a new fire station in the community.

But wait, this particular station holds even more significance; its LEED silver certified.

What’s the big deal about LEED – a program for promoting more environmentally conscientious construction?  To start with, buildings consume 40% of all mined and processed materials and 30% of the energy supply.  A typical construction project generates up to 2.5 pounds of solid waste per square foot of floor space.  Beyond the environmental impacts of “green” construction, studies now show that people work more efficiently and take fewer sick days in “green” buildings.

Despite the benefits of green construction, the building industry has been slow to change.  Much of the resistance was a caused by the lack of understanding about “green” building practices and how to measure their impact.  After years of research and debate, the US Green Building Council piloted a program called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).

The program uses a point-based rating system to provide a framework for all the stakeholders in building construction to work together.  Points are awarded for meeting performance benchmarks in six categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy & atmosphere, materials & resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation & design process.  The end result of the program is to tally the points and award a certification.  Achieving a silver, gold or platinum certification provides an advertising incentive to developers competing for environmentally conscientious tenants.

Some points are easy to achieve – like the one that promotes construction in urban settings.  Others require a fairly rigorous accounting of energy savings and comparisons with baseline buildings; 10 credits can be earned if a new building can be shown to save 42% of total energy consumption versus the baseline.  And then, there are competing points that cause a lot of confusion.  Pick up any trade magazine and you’ll probably see competing advertisements from the steel, concrete, masonry and timber producers associations, all touting their material as the best way to earn LEED credit.

Unlike a law, the provisions of the LEED program are strictly voluntary and there are no “LEED police” to make sure you follow the rules.  They also frequently change the rules.  To promote understanding and adherence to the rules, the USGBC now certifies LEED Accredited Professionals.  Your project gets a point if the key consultants are LEED A.P.  This has prompted a wave of architectural and engineering firms to encourage their employees to become LEED certified.  My company offers a $500 reward for successfully passing the certification examination.

…and that’s probably the biggest reason why I’ve been studying up on LEED, but I think that’s ok.  Once I started reading the study material about LEED, I instantly keyed into the necessity to start designing more environmentally friendly buildings.  Industry-wide acceptance has been a slow process, but today, it is a very big deal for many architects and consulting engineers.  If the City of Chicago, its politicians and public servants can learn to be LEEDers, then it is certain that environmentally conscientious construction has a green future.

Around this time of year, universities the world over are announcing, “welcome back students.”  Many companies are saying goodbye to their interns with much less enthusiasm.  After three or four months of instruction and mentoring, most of our interns are carrying out tasks equivalent to any other entry-level engineer.  Now that the interns are leaving, who’s going to fill those staffing needs?  My attitude toward the end of the summer has significantly changed since my own internship experiences.

I had five different summer internships while I was in college.  I guess I wasn’t all that indispensable to any of those employers.  It never occurred to me to return to the same job.  I valued the diversity of experiences that I got while still trying to decide exactly what I wanted to do for a living.

My first internship was in research.  I worked with a professor who was monitoring conventional highway bridges loaded to their maximum design capacity – using gravel-filled 11-axle semi-trucks and M-1 Abrams tanks.  My role was to help set up the testing equipment and then hold the stop/go sign to block traffic while the tests were conducted.  One day, while loading the bridge with two tanks and two semis, the researchers noticed a major jump in their readings.  I had to deal with some really upset drivers who had to wait half an hour before the team felt it was ok to remove the tanks and reopen the bridge.

Feeling that I had developed some skills with upset motorists, I spent my next summer working for the department of transportation.  Since I worked on projects near my home in rural Michigan, the projects were not spectacular.  I learned how to take density measurements on the soil sub-base and kept track of all the small tasks that were completed by the contractors.  I learned a lot about negotiating with contractors and making real-world decisions from an unorthodox but reliable manager – probably best described as a kindred spirit of “the Dude” from the movie The Big Lebowski. (You need to see this movie, at least a dozen times before it really sinks in.)

By the next summer, my resume was starting to look pretty good – some previous work experience, the right course work and lots of extra-curricular activities.  I was able to land a job with the company doing the steel and concrete inspection at Ford Field – the new Detroit Lions football stadium.  My inspection duties required climbing the high steel with the iron workers to check weld quality and bolt tightness.  A lot of this work was done 120’ in the air.  The steel lifting operation set a record – over 2,000 tons picked at one time.  This was also my first real experience reading shop drawings, the fabricator’s drawings that detail each piece of a steel structure.  Navigating the drawings was as difficult as navigating the site.

The next summer I finally got an office job. I was put to work right away using my knowledge of shop drawings.  Design consultants have to review and approve the detailer’s shop drawings to make sure they comply with the design intent.  They also appreciated my background with bolted and welded connections, so I helped create some Excel and Mathcad worksheets to streamline the process.

Five years after starting my journey through the civil engineering profession, I finally landed my dream job.  I knew that I wanted a mixture of field work and in-office design.  During my first summer in Chicago, I was able to work on US Cellular field (where the White Sox play), Miller Park (Milwaukee Brewers) and a major new WWII U-boat exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Eventually, I finished school and arrived at my current job, where I had previously interned.  Over the past few years, I’ve been involved in hiring and training summer interns.  It has been an interesting reversal of roles.  I can appreciate the challenges and annoyances faced by our interns – like tediously folding drawings and searching for more work.  At the same time, I’ve realized that I’m guilty of assigning some silly tasks – like having an intern make me labels and put them in all of my reference books.

Busy work aside, it’s pretty clear that summer internships provide a mutually beneficial relationship between the student and the employer.  Unfortunately, few civil engineering companies have the resources to provide a comprehensive co-op program.  Instead, students have to be very pro-active in finding and making the best of their summer experiences, and I suppose that process presents a beneficial experience in itself.

To all the students logging in, welcome back.  I hope you had a great summer.  I’d like to hear about your best and worst internship experiences.  Also, please don’t hesitate to send me your questions and comments.  Let me know what topics are most important to you, and I’ll try my best to touch on all of them.